Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Today's Consumption Disease: How All of this Stuff Makes Us Unethical, Unhealthy and Deeply Unhappy

People, we have to change the way we live. In 20 min, this little cartoon tells the story better than I ever could.

We can be happier, much happier. But we have to first see the system for what it is, then want true happiness for ourselves and each other and finally, with the courage of our convictions, resolve to stop this madness.

1 Comments:

I had seen this video earlier this year - maybe about the same time as this post. While you are hopeful I was more pessimistic and expressed that pessimismin a post on my own blog: http://jlpinklings.blogspot.com/2010/03/our-next-war.html

It isn't apparent in what I wrote but the phrase "an inequity of the economic equation" in my post was inspired by this video's representation of how we do not truly pay for what we consume and we make the third world bear much of the cost.

Our standard of living is going to slide until some sort of global parity is reached. If we do not grasp the hope that we can voluntarily reverse our consuming behavior, then world economics will enforce it as more of our jobs go overseas and the environment deteriorates.

My fear is that, if we do not step up to the task voluntarily, Americans will succumb to playing the victim as the standard of living declines and then lash out at those they perceive as taking away their way of life. I fear that we will find a scapegoat.

It is good to read here about a hope to reverse our trends and to take responsibility for our actions and for our own salvation. I needed to see this more positive side. Maybe if we commit and work we can avoid the route of blaming others for our misery. Maybe we can avoid the next war.